Ayoub Missioui and Saleh Bakri in The Blue Caftan (Image: Ad Vitam Distribution)
A hidden gem heavy with love and longing, The Blue Caftan played at this year's BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival
There’s an exceptionally beautiful shot in The Blue Caftan that haunts and envelopes the viewer like a warm breeze. It’s the sight of man face-down in a Moroccan hammam, air thick with steam and longing. With his eyes half-open, a half-smile on his face, he stares with intense, erotic longing, but also total emotional adoration and connectedness at his subject. It’s the kind of moment in film you want to frame and hang on the wall, to remind yourself of similar moments in your own life.
The actor in question is Ayoub Missioui. He plays Yousef, the doting new apprentice of closeted tailor Halim (Saleh Bakri), a pensive, gruff older man with a touch of Murray Bartlett and/or Aidan Gillen about him. (Picture the dad of Stuart from Queer as Folk in linen. Muted shades. A healthy smattering of stubble. Springs to mind pretty easily, doesn’t it?)
Halim leads an unadorned existence running a dwindling caftan store in the medina of Salé. His hard-pressed but dryly humorous wife, Mina (Lubna Azabel) is always by his side. Life is a struggle, but they love each other. Scenes of them laughing and joking impart a comfortable chemistry that’s believably matured over a number of decades. They keep the show on the road well enough. That is, until the occasionally shirtless Yousef’s turns up, triggering timeworn concerns in Mina. Bigger concerns, even, than the vengeful return of her health issues, which she stares down with comparative fearlessness.
The Blue Caftan is ostensibly a film about two men falling in illegal love. A bit like last year’s My Policeman, but set in present-day Morocco. (That said, there’s an uncomplicated appeal to Maryam Touzani’s directorial presentation, and Halim and Mina’s good taste in clothes and décor, that speaks to timelessness. There’s also a disinterest in modern technology. So much so that when the couple visit a rowdy café to watch a sport’s game, the serene mood is briefly obliterated.)
But look closer. You’ll see the film is as much a heterosexual woman’s story as a queer person’s one. If not more. Interpersonal entanglements keep the balance just right, so no one’s story ends up… Short in the arm, to use a threadbare tailoring metaphor. The double-layering is pretty remarkable, actually. This might be a ‘gay movie’ set in a country where homosexuality carries up to a three-year prison sentence – a rare gift, then – but it’s so much more besides. Not least because overt homophobia doesn’t really impact the plot.
As you’ve probably ascertained, Azabel drives a lot of the quietly epic narrative. Bakri and Missioui are lower key by comparison. Necessarily so: Halim and Yousef have more to hide. But Bakri’s coarsely handsome (in)expression always speaks a thousand words. And Missioui’s pure, sweetly-intentioned presence is always a joy. Especially when he finally connects with Mina.
The stripped-back naturalism will prove a disengaging experience for some, and the often-whispered dialogue can test the patience. Plus, the caftan metaphor is overbearing. (The titular garment, in fact, I didn’t even care for!) But these are minor gripes, and admittedly, the opening frames of Halim lovingly handling fabric stirs the senses. This footage, plus Missioui’s aforementioned close up and a long-shot of a graveyard at sunset – a surprisingly life-giving sight – are images that stay with you.
The biggest takeaway, though, is the lesson in Mina’s transformation. Halim’s evolution sparks the plot, but Mina’s is so fast-tracked, so epic in scale, it overshadows it.
In the beginning she’s downright unpleasant to watch. By the end, her outlook on life is so fundamentally, selflessly changed, to an extent some might call far-fetched. Not this reviewer. Having absorbed Azabel’s colossal performance, we wish everyone had Mina’s faith and clarity in life and love. We need more people like her in all countries and cultures.
Source: attitude.co.uk
Add comment
Comments